Seriously, finally, we have a clearly established antagonist. Thank you! Finally, one guy we can point to and say, "That guy right there? You see that guy? With the horns and the whatnot? Yeah. That guy's an asshole."

Why does there always have to be a clearly defined bad guy? Life's rarely that black and white. S'not the end of the world to have a story run that way. Can be a nice change of pace. And anyways for all you know Iris is the real badguy and Esurio is trying to help Colby out. Would YOU think Iris was a badguy? Maybe Esurio just has a problem with trees growing in houses. Upsets his sense of order.

Obviously, many fine works of fiction have featured ambiguous villains. I was just pointing out that the revealed villainy of Esurio was just the shot-in-the-arm this story needed to get me really interested in it again.

As for the Iris-as-villain theory...I can easily see (and in fact expect) Iris to perhaps be revealed as unwittingly dangerous (out of control wish-granting? Yikes!). By the same token, Esurio could in fact be reavealed as a man with good intentions (stopping Iris before she does something more serious than grow a tree or teleport Colby) whose logic has been twisted into a "by any means" mentality.

I'm very interested in seeing where this goes. I can see the possibility that Esurio is trying to stop something that Iris may or may not be causing for the greater good, but why then involve Colby, and threaten to kill him on top of it?

While it's not inconceivable that he's simply someone that thinks the ends justify the means, he's clearly not a good guy in the strict, Campbellian sense. In any case, I think it's what the story needed to get moving. Very cool.

I think the best 'villains' are desperate people or people with just as much justification as anyone else.

Even if we break the law, we all justify it to ourselves. We 'had' to steal something because we couldn't afford it (software, office supplies, whatever). In our minds, we almost never see ourselves as the bad guys.

That doesn't answer any of the questions about Esurio of course, but I thought it might be interesting to give my thoughts on villainy in general.

Look at Lady Eboshi from Princess Mononoke. She may be destroying the forest, but she gives women a strong voice, gives people a strong leader and takes in lepers that no one else would deal with. In her mind, she's taking back the land and defying the stodgy old order. She's a savior and a hero. Killing the God of the Forest will give people hope and drive out the dangerous spirits that are blocking progress.